


Acceptance Speech

by SarnakhTheSunderer



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Coffee, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s3e16 Prophet Motive, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25814761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarnakhTheSunderer/pseuds/SarnakhTheSunderer
Summary: A short I wrote to follow the B-plot ending of Prophet Motive in season 3. Julian is down after the announcement of the Carrington Award's winner, and Jadzia tries to cheer him up. Coffee ensues. Slight one-sided Julzia, full-on Julzia if you squint real hard.
Relationships: Julian Bashir & Jadzia Dax
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	Acceptance Speech

**Author's Note:**

> The B-plot ending of Prophet Motive struck me as ever so slightly abrupt, and I was inspired to write to flesh the ending out.

“Believe me, I’m not.” With that, Dr. Bashir exited the room, PADD in hand, awkwardly pushing through the few remaining condoling Starfleet and Bajoran personnel on his way out. 

“I didn’t think so,” Jadzia muttered to herself. She frowned, then followed the doctor out of the lounge into the corridor of the habitat ring. 

“Julian.” No response. “Julian!”

Bashir turned around and raised an eyebrow. “Dax?” His voice was a mixture of accusation and confusion, and a tinge of annoyance was present as well.

The Trill sighed. “Julian,” she said, “can I talk to you for a minute?” The doctor rolled his eyes and began to move away. “Please?”

The tone of her voice stopped him mid stride, and he turned and leaned against the bulkhead. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his right hand, and sighed. “I suppose so. Not like you can really ruin my day any more than the selection board did,” he said with a flourish of his PADD.

Somewhat nervously, because he’d been testy all day, she asked, “Shall we, go to the Replimat, then, for a drink?” 

He gestured grandly. “Lead the way.”

——

“Double raktajino, iced, extra sweet.”

“I thought you never had raktajino in the evening.” A hum, and it was his turn to order. “Raktajino, with a shot of Irish whiskey, and all the cream you can cram in the mug.”

Somewhat unusually, except for the whirr of the replicators as they produced their beverages, the Replimat was quiet. 

“Aren’t you on duty later this evening?” Jadzia asked, followed by a draught of her drink. 

“I asked first,” Julian replied, tucking the PADD under his arm to grasp the mug with both hands. 

Jadzia smiled briefly as they sat down at the table—idly, she noticed that it was the one Julian and Garak lunched over frequently. Habit, she wondered? Or was he more open to conversation than his manner was suggesting? The doctor’s PADD found its way onto the table as he juggled it and his drink. 

“Oh, I usually don’t, but I thought I’d make an exception—I’m on beta shift tomorrow.”

“Well, I suppose if you don’t have anywhere to be, a little extra caffeine wouldn’t hurt.” 

“You know as well as I do that there’s nothing little about Klingon coffee,” she said with a slight laugh.

Julian smirked. “More than you, actually. I ran a molecular chemical analysis on my usual cup a few weeks back, just to see.” He leaned in slightly. “It turns out that the caffeine content in this cup”—he tapped it with a finger—“is more than three times the average cup of espresso you’d find in a San Fransisco coffee shop.”

She had him, she knew, and took another sip to mask her smile at having drawn the enthusiastic scientist out of the downcast doctor. “I’m guessing you’re something of an expert on those, too.”

“Oh, no more than you, probably. Most of the coffee I had at the academy was from the hospital commissary—honestly, the stuff was *vile*, but it kept you awake. And let me tell you, residents live on the stuff. I know I did.” He took a deep pull of his drink with that pronouncement. 

“I’m guessing the hospital commissary isn’t what introduced you to Irish coffee, though.”

“No, I have the chief to thank for that, after a particularly bad racquetball loss.” He frowned.

“But you didn’t ask me to the replimat to talk about our coffee preferences, did you, Dax.” There was as much question in Bashir’s words as there was truth in Garak’s.

“No Julian, I didn’t.” She folded her hands and leaned forward. “I wanted to apologize.”

Confusion crossed the doctor’s face. “Apologize? What on Earth for?”

“For being a bad friend.”

He scoffed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Look, I’m not going to apologize for nominating you for the Carrington.” She held up a hand to forestall the doctor’s response. “You deserve the nomination, and you _don't_ get to say otherwise.” She sighed briefly. 

“But, maybe, I should have told you privately, instead of springing it on you with the whole command crew.”

His eyes not leaving his drink, “I think maybe that would have been nice.”

Silence filled the air for several seconds, broken only by the quiet hum of the Cardassian machinery and the passersby in the Promenade. 

“Do you remember the first few months I was here, Dax?” Julian asked.

“Not in any great detail, really. Well, except for that time Curzon almost got me executed,” she said with a small laugh.

Julian huffed in something approximating amusement. “I was so arrogant then. So confident that I was going to be the one to change all of these lives, for the better! Frontier medicine, I called it—in front of Major Kira, no less.”

“I’ll be she wasn’t happy about that.”

“Oho, she was _not_. But I learned. I never did make that comment again.” He took another sip of his drink.

“I liked to think that I’d started to grow up, and away from the arrogant child who walked onto the Promenade those four years ago. Someone who was more humble, who didn’t think he was God’s own gift to the Bajoran people.”

He put his head in his hands. “And then here comes the Carrington award. Only given to those with a life of medical achievement, and here I am nominated at the age of twenty nine!”

He leaned back in his chair, hands still on his face. “God, Jadzia, I had _hope_. I knew I wasn’t going to win, but did I care? No, I didn’t, here I was, nominated, and I had a chance! Or at least I thought I did.”

He sighed, and took another sip of his raktajino. “I let hope turn into arrogance,” he said despondently, into his drink. 

“Julian, I—“

He held up a hand. “I don’t blame you one bit, Jadzia. I can’t. I won’t.” He looked up at her slightly. “I only blame myself.”

He leaned back in his chair, something of a sardonic smile on his face, and picked up the PADD he’d been carrying around. “Yesterday, I had lunch with Garak, as usual. He had to leave a little early, said something about a particular customer coming in that day, and he wanted to be ready. You know Garak, he always overprepares for everything. But I’m sitting finishing up my meal, and who comes to sit down but Odo of all people! He sits down with his smug smile—you know the one, when he knows something you don’t, and he’s going to tell you, but in exacting detail when he does—and tells me that he heard from a friend’s wife’s cousin—oh I don’t remember—that Dr. Wade is out of the running. Then, he tricks me into revealing this!” And tossed the PADD in front of Jadzia.

She picked it up gingerly. “What is it, Julian?” she asked, looking up at him.

He scoffed. “A product of my arrogance. An...acceptance speech.”

Jadzia looked at the PADD and turned it on, and began to scan the speech that was stored on the tablet.

“So,” he said after a minute had passed, “what do you think?”

“I...I think it’s a wonderful speech. How long did you spend on it?”

“Far too long, if you think it’s any good,” Julian muttered. “I knew I shouldn’t have bothered but...” he gestured grandly, “here we are.”  
  


“Well, I’d like to hear you give it someday,” Jadzia said with a smile. 

Julian raised an eyebrow. “What?”

She sat the PADD back on the table and slid it towards him. “I fully intend on hearing you give this speech at some point, Julian. It’s too good a speech to not be heard.”

“Are you not listening, Dax? It’s for an award I haven’t _got_!”

“It’s for an award you haven’t got yet,” she reminded him. “You’ll earn the Carrington someday. 

“You really think so?”

She smiled. “I know so. And whether it’s me, or another Dax that knows you like I first knew Benjamin, I fully intend on hearing you deliver that speech.”

He smiled slightly, one corner of his mouth twitching upward. “I suppose I better hold on to it, then,” he said, reaching for the PADD. 

“I suppose so.” She drained her raktajino and passed the PADD back to the doctor.

“Oh, Dax?”

“Yes, Julian?”

“Thank you for chasing after me. I needed a little bit of cheering up.”

“Of course. And if there’s anything else I can do to make it up to you,” she said, “just tell me.”

The doctor smiled. “Well,” he said, reclining slightly, “there are a couple of things.”

“Such as?”

“Since this whole thing started with you, you get to tell Garak why I was in such a mood yesterday at lunch.”

“I suppose I can do that,” she said with a smile. “And the other thing?”

He took a final swig of his fortified raktajino. “Can we do this again next week? I haven’t had coffee with such good company in quite a while.”

“I’d like that, Julian.”

“Thank you.” He stood, stretched, and yawned. “I doubt I’m going to be able to sleep, but I should go to my quarters nonetheless. Good night, Jadzia.”

She stood as well. “Good night Julian. Sleep tight.”

He smirked. “With all this caffeine? Not a chance.” And with that, he grabbed the PADD from the table and left the Replimat, happier than he had entered it. 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have any idea how much caffeine is *actually* in a raktajino, but c'mon. It's klingon coffee. There's no way it's weaker than any human stuff.


End file.
